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Eytan Ruppin's work on cancer and aging featured in Nature Communications

January 31, 2018

Professor Eytan Ruppin of the Department of Computer Science and UMIACS and Professor Christoph Kaleta, Cluster of Excellence Inflammation at Interfaces from Kiel University, Germany led a team of researchers who examined the relationship between degerative diseases--which are the result of aging--and cancer. In order to complete this study, the team "compared changes in the activity of genes during aging from humans, mice, the zebrafish Danio rerio and the short-lived killifish Nothobranchius furzeri across several organs." Their work entitled "Transcriptomic alterations during ageing reflect the shift from cancer to degenerative diseases in the elderly," was published on January 30th 2018 in Nature Communications. Their work will also be a part of a special NC press release on February 1st.

In their work, the researchers examined changes in gene activity that had markers of particular diseases associated with the aging process. They determined that the changes in gene activity noted in degenerative diseases matched and corolated to those related to aging. Moreover, the researchers found that the possibility developing of cancer decreases with the aging of genes. Their research demonstrates that the aging of genes, which increases the chances of developing a degenerative disease, lowers the chances of the development of cancer. This relationship, however, also appears to be inversely proportional, meaning that the higher the chances of the development of cancer, the lower the chances of the development of a degenerative disease related to the aging process.